Travel Channel Academy Opens LA Branch

The elevators in the hotel all have plaques: ‘This elevator used by Arnold Schwarznegger in True Lies”. “This elevator used by Clint Eastwood in In The Line of Fire”.

The funny thing is that I remember the scenes.

So now we are inaugurating the Travel Channel Academy here in Tinseltown.

We have 40 people in the first class. There will be many more to come.

Pat Younge (as pictured above), flew in from DC to talk to the group about how this dovetails with Travel Channel’s long term plans, both in terms of broadcast and broadband. Pat would like to pass 1,000 people through the Academy by next year. We think this is a low estimate. There will be many more than that.

A few days ago we had breakfast with our Asian partner. We’re talking about Travel Channel Academy Singapore opening soon.

Is this ‘learning in a vaccum’? We don’t think so, and neither does Travel Channel. The President of the network did not fly 3,000 miles to address the group for nothing. The Travel Channel is constructing a supportive infrastructure to take in the hundreds and soon thousands of people who we will be training and certifying. And for those who can really produce quality content, there is no limit as to where they can take their newfound skills.

We are really off and running now with this new idea. The pilot days are behind us. It works.

As Winston Churchill said, “this is not the end. This is not even the beginning of the end. It is, however, the end of the beginning”.